(CNA) Theologian says China to have largest Christian population in the next 20 years

Posted by Kendall Harmon

During a recent book launch in Rome, a noted theologian said that China will be home to the majority of the world's Christians within the next two decades.

“Interfaith dialogue is something that China, which will have the world's largest Christian population in 20 years, lives with every day,” said Harvey Cox during the presentation at the city's Jesuit Gregorian University.

Cox presented the book “Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, in dialogue with its two editors” on Nov. 30 with Cardinal Karl Josef Becker, a German theologian of the Vatican's the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

A journalistic error, I suspect, in the introduction. To say that China will have the world’s largest Christian population is not the same as saying that China will have a majority of the world’s Christians. Short of complete conversion of every man, woman and child, I would have thought this a statistical impossibility. The standards of journalism these days have me grasping my aged head in my palsied hands and groaning.